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BY ALEXANDER ROLLE

In print | Published October 30, 2008

The annual Halloween party will be held in Sharples on Saturday night and will be the first party held in the dining hall since Fall 2005. The party, which was held for the last two years in Upper Tarble and previously had been held in the Mary Lyon dormitory, was moved to Sharples for reasons concerning safety and convenience.

According to Rachel Head, Assistant Dean of Residential Life, the decision not to host the party at Mary Lyon was “left up to the residents of Mary Lyon and the RAs.” Head said that the administration advised the RAs and gave them some input, but ultimately left the decision to the residents. She said that the RAs hosted “all-hall meetings where they invited all the residents to come and share their opinions” on the party.

The residents of Mary Lyon decided to decline hosting the party, mainly because of the huge impact caused by most of campus descending on their dorm for a party. The Pitt-Palmer basement was also considered and rejected. “It’s going to be a pretty messy event,” Head said.

“There’s a safety concern — students are going to be drinking at this event, and then they have to get back to campus,” she said. Head went on to say that the school had explored the option of providing a shuttle between Mary Lyon and the rest of campus for the night (like the shuttles that ran at previous Mary Lyon parties), but ultimately decided against it, due to the safety and logistical issues involved with such a shuttle.

There were also concerns with having a party in a residential space, especially one where some residents might not wish to participate in the event. According to Dan Abdul-Malak ’09, an RA for Hallowell, there were problems with restricting partygoers the last time the Halloween party was held in Mary Lyon. “It was hard to keep people out of non-party spaces,” Abdul-Malak said. “There were people knocking on doors and running down hallways.”

Upper Tarble, where the Halloween party took place last year, was rejected for different reasons. According to Paury Flowers, Assistant Coordinator of Student Activities, the school felt there were conflicts between the normal status of Upper Tarble as a dry space and the lifting of that status for this party.

Flowers also said that there’s “a really nice floor [in Upper Tarble] that we’re trying to keep nice for as long as possible,” and that the stairs there presented safety issues. Last year, an intoxicated male student fell down the stairs and had to be transported to Crozer-Chester Medical Center.

Flowers said that Sharples Dining Hall is “a large space that can accommodate just about the entire campus, if it needs to.” She also mentioned that Sharples’ central location makes it a relatively safe space for the party, as students won’t have as far to go traveling to and from their dorms, and are less likely to injure themselves or others or to get in trouble with the Swarthmore police. “If it was in Upper Tarble, often times [the Swarthmore Borough Police] will come around the Parrish circle and cite people if they see them stumbling back to their room,” Flowers said.

“If things go well with the Halloween party there are a lot of folks in the Dean’s Office that would like to see that space utilized more for larger scale parties, like formals, that used to happen in years prior,” Flowers said. According to Flowers, the party will be mainly held in the central area of Sharples, directly below the stairs, where condiments are usually kept. The main dining room will be blocked off, along with the small, private rooms that adjoin the condiment room.

She said the organizers of the party are considering the use of the long, narrow dining room on the West side of the dining hall for additional space, but that they hope the room won’t be needed. For one thing, the organizers hope as much as possible to keep the party out of areas used for eating.
As much as possible, Flowers said, “We like to keep it small, so we can manage it and keep people safe.”

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